The feisty 80-year-old from Hasbrouck Heights is taking on a Leatherneck icon -- the famous World War II photograph by Joe Rosenthal of five Marines and a Navy medical corpsman raising the American flag on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945.

Foley says the flag came from his vessel, the USS Eldorado, an amphibious force command ship and the flagship for Adm. Richmond K. Turner, who led the 500-ship invasion fleet.

The Marines disagree.

They say the flag came from LST 779, a tank-carrying transport ship that beached at the base of Suribachi.

The Navy's official account squares with the Marines', but the Coast Guard has its own version: The flag came from LST 758.

"It's amazing, all the controversy," said Robert Browning, a Coast Guard historian.

Browning interviewed Robert Resnick of Boca Raton, Fla., a Coast Guard quartermaster on LST 758, who said he gave the flag to Marine Pfc. Rene Gagnon and helped Gagnon find a 21-foot, 150-pound pipe for the flag.

Resnick, who died in 2004, said he watched Gagnon struggle to drag the pipe through the sand before other Marines helped him carry it to Suribachi's summit.

The Marines "could not find any holes" in Resnick's story, Browning said.

However, retired Marine Col. Dave Severance, 87, of La Jolla, Calif., found plenty of holes in the story.

"The Coast Guard had absolutely nothing to do with it," Severance said.

He commanded Company E, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines on Iwo Jima. His men participated in the first flag-raising -- at 10:20 a.m. -- and the famous second flag-raising two hours later.